Yule's Apiaries strives to produce strong nucleus colonies and raise queens from hardy, overwintered, northern stock. Our philosophy for dealing with honeybee pests and disease has and continues to be the absolute NON use of chemicals and other foreign material. Varroa and tracheal mites along with hive beetles and wax moths are dealt with by the bees and the bees themselves. This pest management strategy depends on the selection of northern bred queens from thriving spring colonies who were not only top producers the previous season, but also displayed hygienic behavior and showed no sign of disease. Top performing colonies that overwinter well, emerge in spring, strong and ready to bring in nectar. I have sought out and acquired bees from other northern breeders which display hygienic behavior and other survival characteristics. I believe disease resistant, hygienic honeybees bred in a northern climate allow for higher survivability where the setting is treatment free and the winters are cold.
Yule's Apiaries is a member of Northern States Queen Breeders Association. We are proud to be part of an organization that promotes the continued improvement of a northern adapted honeybee. We invite you to visit the NSQBA site to learn more about the association.
We sell open mated queens grafted from carefully selected breeders of overwintered, proven northern stock. In order to bring some new genetics into our yards in 2010 we purchased an instrumentally inseminated Carniolan x VSH breeder from Glenn Apiaries . The overwintered daughters of the instrumentally inseminated queen will be evaluated for good spring buildup, hygienic behavior, disease resistance before they are selected and utilized as drone mother colonies in 2011.
